Google, Yahoo! or Bing – Who Has The Best Cost Per Conversion – A Study

As a big fan of internal statistical studies done in Internet Marketing I always enjoy when our team at TechWyse uncover findings that are not regularly reported amongst the big search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. The purpose of this short article is to tell you about a recent study we recently conducted relating to conversion rates in paid search accounts for Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search and Bing AdCenter. While in my opinion the results are not as conclusive as I usually like (because of the size of the test market) I do believe that it provides some good information to chew on.

In our test we looked at the overall cost per conversion on identical pay per click campaigns on all the paid search platforms. Want to know the findings? Well here goes…

After reviewing the total amounts spent on accounts and reviewing the total cost per conversions, here is the findings of our study:

Which Paid Search platform offers the best Cost Per Conversion?

1. Bing

2. Google – 24% on average higher than Bing per conversion

3. Yahoo! – 56% on average high than Bing per conversion

Findings:

Bing – We were generally impressed with the fantastic conversion rates brought in by Bing searchers. In almost every case Bing seems to have better overall cost per conversion. Why? Some factors we have determined are that searchers are generally older, less internet savvy and in many cases are likely using search engines as much as many other users. The searcher, in many cases may be using the search function as part of many of Bing’s partner sites and has a user base that wants to get straight down to business.

Google – quite typically we find them the middle of the road for CPA. We were very pleased with these results and in reality they were not that far off from Bing adCenter. Continued development of clickfraud tools will help both Google and users.

Yahoo! This also confirmed our own company belief that Yahoo! lags behind considerably in terms of bringing in qualified leads for its Paid Search clients. Many things could be attributed to this including:

Yahoo! may have suspect click fraud detection.

Yahoo! searchers may be more tech savvy and a higher degree of ‘tire kickers’.

Yahoo! itself seems to be having some huge internal issues with its Paid Search platform including unreported downtime, and quesionable interface issues. (Yes we have first hand experience with these issues!)

Which Pay Per Click platform had the most search volume?

1. Google

2. Yahoo! – 32% the traffic brought by Google Adwords.

3. Bing – 11% the traffic brough by Google Adwords.

Findings: This confirms what most people already know — Google is king of search. Everyone else is far behind. While we love the CPA on Bing’s tool, we do not recommend to anyone using it as your only pay per click campaign if you plan to strick it rich! 🙂

Some more information to help you understand the composition of our studies. (as this may have an effect on results)

results were taken from the following industries: Manufacturing, Law Firms, Private Health Care, & HR Companies.

Geographic Targets: A range of all of North America, Toronto, & Vancouver Canada, California, Florida, Texas & New York.

For any further information on this study please feel free to send your comments in the comments section below!

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12 Comments

The study reflects both of your eagerness to assess the industry and of your real internet marketing considerations that what you’ve presented on your website. Great effort DJ!! A highly appreciative initiative. Push on guys!!

As this analytical study was done recently this post deserves special consideration. The internet supplies a lot of such studies but all were outdated since it was recorded in 06’0r 07′. Thanks- for providing new info on search advertising market figures. Keep going pls! Its good info for me!

DJ,
funny you mention that MSN is the best converter.
Along these lines, I saw another study that showed that out of ALL the search engines, the very top converters are (in order) 1. AOL 2. ASK 3. LIVE.

The problem is that their pool of people is so small that it doesn’t make a difference. This is also misleading because each one of these search engines borrows from the big 3 in one way or another. In effect, we might as well be talking about the big 3 all over again.

That the Google Pay Per Click platform had the most search volume should surprise no one. After all, Google has on an average 64.13 %, Yahoo 21.26 %, and MSN 9.15 % share of all online searches. Surely, pay per click platform will also mirror this. Your search result is after all a reaffirmation of this very fact. Good work! I wonder what trends will continue as time continues!?

This is very interesting. So Google holds the major chunk of search volume!! Very cool info that MSN is best in conversion in conversion rates over Google and Yahoo. I am interested to hear deeper into your studies.

I feel goodwill is a major issue in all business deals. Google and Microsoft have tons & tons of it. The general belief in their technical perfection, transparency and their precautionary steps against deceit and manipulation gives them an edge over others. I would rather say that this explains in a nut shell their dominance.

Your study, though not wholly unexpected made interesting reading DJ. It reemphasized the unchallenged supremacy of Google. The size of the test market, though not wholly unimportant, yet in your case, it covered the West, South, East & the Central parts of USA. It is rather reflective of the general mood in USA. The only drawback seems to be that industry segments you touched upon were few and does not mirror the whole gamut of US industry.